I am very stubborn about problem solving, which is one of the reasons I keep
clinging to the hope that I will somehow straighten out the issues with my PC. I
am, however, coming to the conclusion that there is an issue with my
motherboard, as it's hard to come up with an explanation that encompasses the
inconsistent results I'm getting from my troubleshooting. It's gotten to the
point where I am strategizing my next build, so on some level I've given up the
idea that this will be solved through software. The budget for this will have to
go past the $0 I have earmarked, and my goal is to make a machine that's fast
and quiet, which will make it that much harder to stay cheap. At this point I'm
considering a last gen i5 like the 3570K and overclocking the snot out of it,
perhaps using liquid cooling, though I haven't really investigated the
cost/performance tradeoffs of getting a faster CPU and using air cooling, which
will make the case and cooler cheaper.